1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an adjusting apparatus which receives characteristic values indicating quality of articles processed by one of m production processing devices from one of n measuring devices, and specifies and adjusts the production processing device or measuring device as a device to be adjusted.
2. Related Art
In the related art, in order to enhance productivity of articles, a production method is used in which a plurality of processing machines having the same function or a plurality of processing boards having the same function are provided for each production line, and articles are produced with the operation from the initial process to the last process. In such a production method, generally, a plurality of production lines are provided, and the articles are processed in parallel through the individual production lines.
Then, on the way of each production line or at the last process, in order to examine whether the processed article meets regular quality, a plurality of measuring machines (measuring devices) are provided so as to measure the characteristics of the processed article.
Moreover, for example, the characteristics represent the size of the produced article, the performance of the article, such as bonding strength or the like, or quality, such as precision or the like. Hereinafter, the values indicating the characteristics are referred to as characteristic values.
By the way, in the above-described production method, there may be a case in which a characteristic value obtained by the measuring machine as the measurement result is out of a range of characteristic values when the processed article meets regular quality. The reason for this situation includes an adjustment inconsistency of the processing board, the processing machine, or the like, a measurement error of the measuring machine itself, and the like.
However, in order to produce high-quality articles, the processing board, the processing machine, the measuring machine, and the like need to be adjusted such that the characteristic value measured by the measuring machine falls within the range when the article meet regular quality.
As such, when the processing board, the processing machine, the measuring machine, and the like need to be adjusted, in the related art method, a person who is engaged in the production operation of the article, in particular, a skilled operator, experientially specifies and adjusts a device having the inconsistency according to the state of the characteristic value obtained from the measuring machine.
Moreover, as for the adjustment of the measurement error of the measuring machine, for example, in JP-A No. 10-132914 (published on May 22, 1998) (hereinafter referred as Patent Document 1), a calibration method of a measuring machine for a production line has been disclosed in which the individual measuring machines measure a standard article having the same reference characteristic, and a variation in the measurement results of the individual measuring machines is adjusted by use of the measuring result of the standard article.
In the configuration disclosed in Patent Document 1, when the inconsistency occurs in devices (for example, the processing machine or the like) other than the measuring machine, the skilled operator specifies the device to be adjusted on the basis of the state of the characteristic value measured by the measuring machine.
Further, in JP-A No. 2-74852 (published on Mar. 14, 1990) (hereinafter referred as Patent Document 2) and JP-A No. 10-132536 (published on May 22, 1998) (hereinafter referred as Patent Document 4), methods have been disclosed in which a cycle of defect to be generated in an article to be examined is measured. According to the related art methods, the defect which cyclically occurs can be detected.
Further, in JP-A No. 5-47619 (published on Feb. 26, 1993) (hereinafter referred as Patent Document 3), a meter for availability of a semiconductor device has been disclosed in which operation/non-operation is judged in a reference interval cycle of an operation signal from a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus with an error range and availability is measured. The meter for availability can accurately acquire operation time of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus. For this reason, in the related art apparatus, the time for execution of a regular maintenance of the semiconductor device or for exchange of degraded parts can be grasped.
Further, in JP-A No. 2005-59070 (published on Mar. 10, 2005) (hereinafter referred as Patent Document 5), a method of manufacturing a copper bar has been disclosed. That is, in a method of manufacturing a copper bar by hot rolling, occurrence of a surface defect is expected from the measurement result of a surface by an alternating current magnetic flux. Then, a manufacturing condition is determined according to the expectation result, and a portion where the expected defect is to be present is removed. Accordingly, the defect can be detected/removed at an upstream process or the defect can be prevented.
However, in the related art method, the device to be adjusted is specified and adjusted depending on an experiential knowledge of the operator. As such, because of the dependency on the experiential knowledge of the operator, the device to be adjusted cannot be immediately specified, and thus productivity of the article is reduced.
However, in the related art configurations, when the article is processed by any one of a plurality of production processing devices, and the characteristic value is measured by any one of a plurality of measuring devices as the processing result, there is no disclosure of the configuration in which a device having an inconsistency is specified with superior accuracy.
Further, in the related art configurations, there is no disclosure of the configuration in which a specified production processing device is easily adjusted so as to reduce the variation of the characteristic values measured by the measuring devices at low cost, the ratio of occurrence of the inconsistency after the adjustment of the specified device is expected, and information in view of production efficiency is provided.